In the Age of Love and Chocolate (Birthright #3)(48)

“I promised not to die while you were away,” he said.

“It looks as if you barely kept that promise.”

“How was America?”

I told him of my adventures, eking more excitement and humor out of my travels than there had actually been. I wanted to amuse him, I suppose. He reported the progress that had been made with the Japanese clubs. We spoke of our parents, none of whom were living. Without thinking, I asked him to say hi to my mother, my father, and my nana if he happened to see them in Heaven.

He smiled at me. “I think you know I am not going to Heaven, Anya. One, I am not a good man. And two, I don’t believe in such a place. I didn’t know you believed either.”

“I’m weak, Yuji,” I said. “I believe when it is convenient for me to believe. I don’t want to think that you might end up nowhere, in some black void.”

The rain cleared, and though his doctor was against it, he wanted to go for a walk. The grounds of the estate were lovely, and despite the humidity, I was glad to be outside.

The act of walking and talking soon proved too much for Yuji Ono, and even with his oxygen tank in tow, he quickly lost his breath. We stopped at a bench by a koi pond. “I do not like dying,” he said mildly after his breathing had regulated.

“You say that as if you’re speaking of a food you dislike. I do not like broccoli.”

“I don’t remember you being funny,” he said. “It is my upbringing. We are taught to keep much inside. But I don’t like dying. I would rather be alive to fight, to plan, to plot, to connive, to win, to betray, to eat chocolate, to drink sake, to tease, to make love, to laugh my head off, to leave my mark on this world…”

“I’m sorry, Yuji.”

“No. I don’t want your pity. I only want to tell you that I don’t like it. I don’t like the pain. I don’t like the affairs of my physical body being a matter of daily discussion. I don’t like looking like a zombie.”

“You’re still handsome,” I told him. He was.

“I’m a zombie.” He smiled at me crookedly. “We should be like the fish,” Yuji said. “Look at them. They swim, they eat, they die. They don’t make such a production of these little things.”

* * *

Yuji passed early the next morning. When Kazuo told me, I bowed my head, but I did not allow myself to cry. “Was it peaceful?” I asked.

Kazuo did not reply for a moment. “He was in pain.”

“Did he have any last words?”

“No.”

“Did he have any message for me?”

“Yes. He wrote you a note.”

Kazuo handed me a slate. Yuji’s stroke was very light. I squinted to make it out before realizing the message was in Japanese. I handed the slate back to Kazuo. “I can’t read this. Would you translate for me?”

Kazuo bowed deeply. “It does not make much sense to me. I am very sorry.”

“Try. If you don’t mind. Maybe it will mean something to me.”

“As you wish.” Kazuo cleared his throat. “To my wife. The fish does not die with regrets because the fish cannot love. I die with regrets, and yet I am glad I am not a fish.”

I nodded.

I bowed my head.

I had not loved him, but I would miss him terribly.

He had understood me.

He had believed in me.

Is this better than love?

And maybe fish do love. How could Yuji even know?

* * *

Perhaps it was a sign of denial but I had not brought black clothes to Japan. One of the maids lent me a mofuku, a black mourning kimono. I put it on, then looked at myself in the mirror. I seemed older than twenty, I thought. I was a widow and maybe this was how widows looked.

The funeral began like any funeral. I had, at this point, been to more than my share. This one was in Japanese, but it doesn’t particularly matter what language a funeral is in. The tiny room had light pine walls, like the interior of a poor man’s coffin, and was so packed with Yuji’s colleagues and relatives that I could not even see who was in the back. Incense was burning on the altar, and the air smelled sickly sweet, of synthetic frangipani and sandalwood. (No matter how old I get, I will never stop associating the scent of frangipani with death.) Orchids leaned in a blue vase, and a white lily floated in a shallow wooden bowl.

People say that the dead at funerals look peaceful. It’s a nice sentiment, if untrue. The dead look dead. Perhaps the body is peaceful—it does not cough or wheeze or argue or move—but it is a husk, nothing more. The body that had once been Yuji Ono was dressed in his wedding clothes. The hands were clasped over his favorite samurai sword and had been positioned so that his amputated finger was not in view. The mouth had been forced into a strange almost-smile, an expression Yuji had never worn in life. This was not Yuji to me, and this was not peace.

The priest signaled us to come and leave incense at the altar. After that, people went to view the body, though there was not much to see. He was a layer of wasted flesh over a pile of bones. Sophia’s poison had killed him leisurely and dreadfully.

Though it was customary to acknowledge the widow, a woman with a shroud of black hair and a wide-brimmed, charcoal-colored hat walked right past me on her way to the altar. She was taller than almost anyone at the funeral.